It has a long way to go before it reaches the levels that Esperanto and Lojban have. It is estimated that there are over a million people who use Esperanto casually, and tens of thousands who are fluent in it. There are some thousand people for whom Esperanto is their mother tongue. Esperanto is also recognized by UNESCO and there are regular television and radio broadcasts done in the language.

You know, that's kinda what I thought would happen but.... I've done "The Klingon Christmas Carol" (http://cbtheatre.org/Klingon-Xmas-Carol.html) as a sound/light designer for 3 years (and I'm about to do a 4th) and we've basically sold out every year. Plus, we got a gig for Paramount doing a few excerpts from Klingon Hamlet that are on the Star Trek VI BluRay.

Unless you can translate this to English, mods, how do you even know if it's offtopic? It COULD be questions about the venue, followed by an enthusiastic statement of intentions to attend... would that be "Offtopic" ?

I believe it's because Klingon uses a lot of glottal stops, (the blank spot, for example, in "uh oh!") and represents those by apostrophes. Many languages that have very new and contrived writing systems (like St'at'imcets [wikipedia.org]) use Latin characters in different ways than we might normally be used to.

That being said, what's wrong with learning fictional languages? It's almost a given that you'll have something in common with other people who learn it beyond the fact that you know the same language. If you enjoy doing something, you'll find time to do it. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?

The act of constructing Klingon was based on our understanding of how many other languages work, or have worked in the past - i.e. Linguistics as a study - I highly doubt it contributed anything to Linguistics as a whole. Its a clever language in and of itself, but not revolutionary. I highly doubt there is very much in Klingon that hasn't occurred elsewhere in another human language. The sheer variety of ways that humans have chosen to develop their languages is just staggering, and almost anything you can

Time for someone to really get their geek on and translate "Ode To A Small Lump Of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning". I'd imagine it's military applications would greatly interest the Klingons, although they'd probably consider it a dishonorable method of combat.

After much thought and consulting the experts I came up with:
tujbogh pem nI' po 'I'wIjDaq SuDqu'bogh DochHom'e' tlher vItu'bogh gha'tlhIq
the ode of respect of a small green lumpy thing which I found in my armpit on the morning of a long, hot day.

Hamlet in Klingon was published about 10 years ago.ISBN-13 - 978-0671035785 (Amazon [amazon.com]

Much Ado about Nothing was published in 2003ISBN-13: 978-1587155017 (Amazon [amazon.com]).

There's also Gilgamesh, also published in 2003.ISBN-13: 978-1587153389 (Amazon [amazon.com]).

As for why - well, why not? It's an activity they're interested in, and if people can communicate meaningful information, is it less a language than the artificial ones we use to program our computers with? C/C++/Java/PHP/Perl/Python/Ruby/Assembly/Machine Code/etc are all

I think the novel part about the Klingon language is that it is an unnecessary language invented by people who intentionally decided to learn a language that it unlikely to ever be useful.

The programming languages exist because compilers cannot speak English, and computer programmers cannot agree on one perfect means of communicating one's wishes to the compiler. A better programming language analogy would be with the non-mainstream [computersight.com] languages, such as LOLCode and Brainfuck. Those languages are not meant to

It's hard enough to translate Shakespeare into another natural language without losing a great deal (see Doug Hofstadter). Given the limited vocabulary of Klingon (see your Klingon dictionary), you will get a lengthy, tedious baby-talk retelling.

It's hard enough to translate Shakespeare into another natural language without losing a great deal (see Doug Hofstadter). Given the limited vocabulary of Klingon (see your Klingon dictionary), you will get a lengthy, tedious baby-talk retelling.

Since it's Klingon, you're more likely to get a lengthy, tedious baby-talk reyelling.

But Shakespeare has well defined meaning to a considerable level of sophistication. The way to do it is to extend the language logically from what is already available and where this is not enough, invent more Klingon to express the concepts.
Done well, this project has great potential to develop the Klingon language into something fully functional. Not that there is much point, of course.

I've been into Klingon and Esperanto and Tolkien's languages and linguistics generally since I was about 10 years old. I think jokes about the nerdiness of Klingon speakers are funny too, but having met at least a dozen of the best Klingon speakers in the world, I can attest that most of them are highly accredited professionals who are married and have kids. A disproportionate number also seem to be colorblind Jewish programmers, for some odd reason, but my point is these guys are intelligent, productive